Perception Shift
by exorcisingemily
Summary: Perception is largely an emotional response. How we feel affects how we see the world. --- My first Fringe fic, a study of the ending of Jacksonville. Just a drabble, but I'm testing the waters.


He'd reached out to her, as he had so many times before. Cradled his hand to her cheek, palm warm, his voice low and hesitant. It was the hesitation that was new to her, an observation to be filed for later. Peter Bishop rarely hesitated. He might resist, might fight an action, but when he committed a thought into action he did it without looking back. When he laughed, when he smiled, when he hated, when he fought, he did it with a heady, uninhibited vitality that struck her, pulled her off of her guard, coaxed her into responding in turn. He breathed life back into her, brought the colors back into a world she had forced into black and white and shades of grey, and brought her back from the ledge she kept finding herself on. He was moving forward to protect her from herself, and now from the fear of her own failure. But it was fear she needed.

Their breath mingled, hot and sweet, the promise of more. The fragile wall they'd built between them to head off more didn't crash down, it melted away quietly, as if it had never truly existed. The mission stole the moment, but running towards the window, feeling the weight of his gaze on her, she was reminded of something.

_Momentum can be deferred, but it must always be paid back. _They'd put something into motion between them, and putting it on hold for the job didn't necessitate its being forever stalled. It couldn't be--it was a matter of science. Of Physics. She's almost shy as she calls to propose they go out for drinks to celebrate—hesitation came more naturally to her, but she wasn't going to second guess herself now.

Come as you aren't.

She was always so formal, uptight. Cool colors, neutrals, a peacoat swathing her in bulk and officiousness, designed to act as a constant reminder of her federal affiliation, an armor of wool. To fit into such a boy's club, she ensured that she never accentuated her figure. The jeans hugged her hips, low enough to show the dimple at the small of her back, flaring out over heeled leather boots. Catching her reflection in the mirror, she hesitates over the last step, reaching up to free her hair from its utilitarian, functional prison. As it cascades down in a silken sheet, she tousles it and allows herself to smile.

He was always tousled.

Good boy gone bad. He never buttoned the collars of his shirts, never ironed, never shaved. His morning routine was to rake his fingers through his hair after the shower, to ensure it wouldn't lie flat, wouldn't conform to expectations of any federal affiliate. Every fed he'd seen looked like they'd walked out of the same barber—he looked like he'd suavely swindled the barber out of his earnings, and then gone and blown it on gambling. In the past, that might not have been entirely far from the truth. Peter Bishop had never found anything terribly difficult, and had never cared how he was viewed in any town. Then again, he'd never had any ties before, any anchor to make him focus on one endeavor for longer than it suited him.

Hands braced on the porcelain of the bathroom sink, he stares his reflection in the eyes, noting the changes in his features, a visual dissection. His father's brilliance and his mother's ethos, a genius who could understand empathy just enough to know how to play people like he played the piano, fingers stroking the keys for the desired effect, mathematics turned into art.

Looking down at his hands, hands that always reached out unbidden to her, pulled her toward him, directed her with a touch, grazed fingertips across the back of her hand to pull her attention, he lets his breath out slowly and grabs the aftershave. He catches his sweater off of the bed before he heads downstairs, keeping his hands out of his hair by reaching up to fix his top button.

When he swings open the door, he's come to the conclusion that for her, he can stop running.

When she looks at the ghostly refractions of his aura, her smile slowly dying, she realizes that he can't.

_Perception is largely an emotional response. How we feel affects how we see the world. And so, Belly and I reasoned that extreme emotions would stimulate this perception. That acute feelings of fear, or love, or anger would heighten the awareness. Open the mind, as it were. _

Fear. Love. Anger.

Her gaze slides to Walter as he pleads with her. Perception shifts. And for a moment, the world turns upside down.


End file.
